Get the Biz Briefing newsletter!

The Nassau IDA is among the most active of Long Island’s eight IDAs, with 173 projects receiving tax breaks in 2016, a 158 percent increase from 2004’s 67 projects, according to a Newsday analysis of certified IDA reports filed with the state.

Projects aided by the Nassau IDA created 14,478 jobs in 2016 compared with a loss of 8,678 jobs in 2004. Tax savings granted to the projects totaled $44 million in 2016, up 311 percent from 12 years earlier, the analysis showed.

Schnirman said Monday his audit is intended to be “constructive, not adversarial . . . County residents have raised a number of questions about the IDA, and an audit can help us get answers,” he said.

Schnirman, a former Long Beach city manager, is familiar with the Nassau IDA because the developer of waterfront apartments on Long Beach’s Super Block parcel sought IDA tax breaks more than once. The requests came to nothing in the face of fierce opposition at public hearings attended by hundreds of people.

The IDA was last audited in 2011 by Schnirman’s predecessor, George Maragos, at the behest of the IDA’s then new board of directors.

Maragos, at the time a Republican, found the IDA under Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, a Democrat, had failed to seek an independent analysis of the economic benefits of each project before awarding tax incentives. He also found inadequate monitoring of whether companies keep their employment promises in return for IDA help.

Many of the problems were corrected by the Nassau IDA, under Republican County Executive Edward Mangano, before Maragos released his audit.

During Mangano’s eight years in office, the IDA aided 88 building projects that will generate nearly $94 million in investment, tax payments and other economic activity over the life of the incentive packages, which can be 10, 20 and even 40 years, according to a December report commissioned by the IDA. As a group, the projects will create 11,127 jobs.

Schnirman said his audit will cover 2015 through 2017 and will include a review of some projects. The Maragos audit looked at 21 projects over 14 years.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect spelling of former Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi’s surname.